New Madrid Earthquake: A River Runs Backward

Novice

No audio: How can a river run backwards? This animation shows how a river can be forced backwards, albeit only long enough to find a new route. Several written accounts from the New Madrid earthquake of 1811 and 1812 describe the horror as great waters swashed upriver causing lakes to form on previously dry land.

This is from eyewitness accounts of the 1811 New Madrid earthquake.

Keypoints:

  • Rivers run downhill
  • During thrustfaulting in 1811, the land was forced up
  • The river was truncated
  • Uplifted land forced the water to obey the law of gravity and head up river

Related Animations

Volcanoes, dinosaurs & inland sea around New Madrid? Hmm. There is an interesting geologic story told in the rocks of the New Madrid seismic zone. This animation takes each segment of geology and spins a scenario in cross section to see how the landscape has changed over its 500 million year history.  No audio.

Animation Novice

Related Interactives

This interactive timeline shows that the 1811-12 earthquakes in New Madrid weren't the first.  

Interactive Novice

There are four major faults in and around the Reelfoot Rift related to earthquakes in the New Madrid area.

Interactive Novice

Many residents along the Mississippi experienced vigorous ground shaking and wrote about it in 1811 and 1812. Touch spots on map to read accounts of the devastation.  For example, for spot #10, hover over the spot to watch an animation about how the river ran backwards (as witnessed by local residents.)

Interactive Novice

Raw seismic data gives us information about the ground beneath us. This interactive cross section shows faults beneath the New Madrid area.

Interactive Novice

Learn about past large earthquakes, liquefaction, seismicity, sand blows, and landslides in this interactive map.

Interactive Novice

A sand blow is sand and water that come out onto the ground surface during an earthquake as a result of liquefaction. Also known as a "Sand boil."

Interactive Novice

Scroll over the timeline from 1800 to 2010 to see the population of the United States grow to see what the impact of the 1811-1812 New Madrid earthquake would have today.

Interactive Novice

Interactive map reveals seismology, geology, and geologic history of the midwest.

Interactive Novice